


blood on your bones

by ivelostmyspectacles



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Depression, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mostly Gen, Self-Harm, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23590054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/ivelostmyspectacles
Summary: “Tell me about your scars.”“Tell me about yours.”Geralt finally snaps, and Jaskier’s left reeling a little from the words. He hadn’t expected that response, just like he hadn’t noticed he’s been rubbing his thumb over the marks, old and permanent, a few inches below his wrist.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 52
Kudos: 745





	blood on your bones

“Come _on,_ Geralt.” He’s going the right way to be snapped at, he knows, but he can’t sit here any longer without some kind of conversation. He’s _tired_ of watching Geralt work on his potions. Even the intrigue of that has worn off, the colors they make and the smells they produce, their properties and the genuine look of angry disbelief on Geralt’s face when Jaskier sneaks a finger into one just to taste, directly after Geralt tells him witcher potions usually kill humans. Gods, he’d been surly that night, but Jask had been _fine;_ he hadn’t had enough of consequence to do anything to him, anyway, and he’s sure the stomachache after had been because it tasted so foul in the first place. “Give me something.”

“Give you _what?”_ Oh yeah, he’s getting surly now, too. But Jaskier can’t quite stop himself. It’s so quiet, and the quiet makes him _nervous._

“Something to do. Something to write about.” He taps the graphite against his little book, and tries to think up _anything_ to keep his mind busy. But their hunts have been few and far in between and, honestly, altogether wholly uninteresting. He’s got the beginning of a writer’s block that makes his palms itch. He scrubs his fingertips into his palms, and waits for Geralt to grace him with something that will end his frustrations. “Tell me about an old hunt.”

“No.”

_“Geralt.”_ He’s pleading, yes, he’s pleading. Wheedling the information out of Geralt bit by little bit.

“Jaskier.”

He’s being annoying, too; he can tell, tell by his own repeated questions and the way Geralt’s drawing tighter into himself across the fire. It’s a bad habit. He can’t quite seem to shake it, and he absolutely can’t weather this silence tonight. “That’s my name, yes, good. It has such a distinctively pleasing ring when you say it with that gravely tone of yours–” He grins when Geralt shoots him an exasperated glare. “I’m _begging_ you. Something to keep me busy. An old hunt, an old flame? Maybe your more _casual_ dalliances?” He laughs when Geralt scowls, and stabs something more determinedly into the potion he’s making. “Tell me again about witchers. Tell me about your scars.”

“Tell me about yours.”

Geralt finally snaps, and Jaskier’s left reeling a little from the words. He hadn’t expected that response, just like he hadn’t noticed he’s been rubbing his thumb over the marks, old and permanent, a few inches below his wrist. Bad habit. He _fiddles_ too much, but that’s the nervous anxiety for you. He can’t seem to shake that habit either, but he does pause with the pad of his finger over one of them now. They’re barely noticeable, although it’s not like he’s made any vested effort to hide them; he’s sitting sleeves pushed up across from a witcher, who had probably noticed the scars from day one, nevermind the way they catch silver in the flickering light of the fire.

He laughs a little, quieter, and drops his hand. “Nothing to tell, really.” He’s being honest, more or less. He’s a master of stretching the truth– it’s his _job–_ but, well, it’s an afterthought. Something he barely even notices himself these days. He sometimes forgets people can, and do. “It was a lifetime ago,” he says, and it was. Maybe just five years or so, but still a lifetime. Things have changed. He thinks he’s changed.

Geralt’s no longer fussing about with the potion, just _looking_ into it now. (He’s prepared it right. It’s the right color. Jaskier can tell.) For a second, he thinks maybe Geralt’s going to _apologize–_ people do that, too, when they notice or inadvertently bring it up. He guesses he understands the need of privacy, but also feels like he doesn’t quite earn it if he isn’t trying to hide it. And it’s not exactly something he’s ashamed of anymore, anyway.

But Geralt doesn’t do anything except start to bottle the potion, which is _fair,_ because who’d been sitting here prying for details about the scars covering _his_ body in the first place? Invasive questions for invasive questions. Geralt absolutely isn’t like the women who lament over those scars, trip over themselves in awkward flattery about his strength and courage and that’s all well and fine, but he’d never done it for _attention._

_… although,_ he guesses that depended on who you asked.

But it really was a lifetime ago. It’s okay, and has been. He smiles, because Geralt has given him something to think about, and picks up the graphite to scribble down some thoughts. He won’t make a song out of it, but writing has been a reprieve for a lifetime now, too.

  
  


Meeting up again with Geralt is not kind. It’s been well over a year, almost two, and their reunion is not everything Jaskier expects it to be after he’s fantasized about it so long. He tries to convince himself that that’s fair; it was never going to be picture perfect and _he’s_ the cause for the animosity when they do meet. But he convinces himself that _that’s_ fair, too; he hadn’t expected much, gods know, Geralt’s always been shit with emotion (not including anger) and Jaskier has always accepted that as a flaw and moved on, but he’d just expected… he doesn’t know. Something a bit more. Something a lot more than he and Geralt carrying on like they had before the dragon hunt. Considering the last thing Geralt had said to him– _almost two years ago–_ had been it would be a blessing to be away from him, Jaskier knows Geralt owes him the apology.

And he gives one– oh, he does. He wonders if that was self-orchestrated or prompted along by their friends– Geralt’s friends– but it’s dry and lacklustre and feels rushed as hell, and Jask, he’s… he’s angry.

So they meet up again and Geralt _tries_ but Jaskier loses it a bit, again, after these two years, gives him a piece of his mind, and cries when no one is looking. It doesn’t stop him from going with him, him and Yen and Ciri, because he wants to see it through for Ciri’s sake, and because, beneath all the anger and sadness, he still… misses Geralt, too.

But it’s been a long two years. He is older, and lonely, and desperate and tired. Gods, he is so tired.

He catches Geralt watching him undress a week in, when they’re settling down in their respective tent. He’s about to say something, about to give some wise arse comment because he can’t help himself, and some things don’t/can’t change, and the feeling of Geralt’s eyes intent on him after two years of being alone makes his skin crawl. But then he realizes that Geralt’s only tracking the movement of his hands, and the cold panic trickles in. He’d forgotten. It was so easy to forget when you weren’t alone.

He pulls a shirt on in record time, and yanks the sleeves down over his wrists. “Don’t ask.”

Honestly, if the positions were reversed, Jaskier wouldn’t be able to help himself, either. The scar is deeper, messier, diagonal instead of his old, neat horizontal ones. The old ones had been… calculated. He’d been careful, and they had mostly faded into obscurity. This one hadn’t, and never will. When the weeks had gone on, true agony and heartbreak and the lack of will to pick up a pencil, let alone his lute… he hadn’t been careful.

He barely even remembers that night, which is just as well, because it still hurts like hell to think about. It still hurts, even though the scar has long since healed as well as it can.

“Another lifetime?” Geralt says quietly.

The anger and sadness flare again. And the shame, curling heavy into his gut now. His lips tremble, and he grabs his boots. He’s going for a walk. “A whole godsdamn millenia, Geralt,” he snaps, and ducks outside still only half dressed with his boots in hand.

The anger doesn’t last. It fizzles almost as quickly as it had come, and Jask spends an embarrassing amount of time crying under the treetops, only a little afraid something might show up and attack. Okay, a lot afraid. Some things wouldn’t change. He wasn’t sure if _he_ had changed.

He sleeps outside, next to the campfire (not the first time since he’s rejoined the crew, so nothing new there) and pretends the blanket draped over his shoulders was put there by Ciri, or even Yen.

He doesn’t think it’s good for his heart if he lets himself believe it was Geralt.

  
  


Life moves in circles.

Sometimes, Jaskier thinks that wholeheartedly. He wishes he had a better metaphor. He’s a poet; it should come naturally. It doesn’t. Circles. Because no matter the state of things, he always cycles back to the same old, same old, and he’s sat, watching a candle burn down to wax and smoke, feeling sorry for himself again. He recognizes the low, at this point, but it doesn’t do much to help overcome it. It’s just knowing something is wrong and being too weak to be able to do anything about it, which, incidentally? Doesn’t help much, either.

There’s a letter opener on the desk. He stares at it for a long while, stroking at the scars on the insides of his wrists.

It would be so easy. It would be so easy.

Not often he thinks that. He hits a _mood_ semi-regularly– chronic, that’s a new word. Healers are using it more often now. _Of long lasting illness,_ he thinks, which feels like it fits, but what does he know? But he usually doesn’t stoop so low, rarely makes it so far down that he’s back to feeling his skin and overthinking. When he was younger. After the mountain. And nearly one time at Kaer Morhen, after he and Geralt had had their down and out and made up because of it, before one of the other witchers– Eskel, he believed– startled him out of it by knocking on his door looking for his goat. (An actual goat. No, it wasn’t a euphemism. Jask had laughed ‘til he cried, that night, and felt right again come morning.) And now… now it would be easy. Ready and willing.

He presses his nails to the soft flesh below the heel of his hand. Just enough to feel, just enough to hurt. He’s not sure if it’s ever been about that, particularly. It’s just… a need. And a want. His fingernails bite into his wrist, and he drags them down over his scars. They had stopped hurting years ago, and now it only hurts as much as fingernails into skin did (which actually meant it could hurt a lot, he’s used to that, rows of scratched flesh after a particularly good fuck, but even that idea incites very little enthusiasm in him now.) He presses slowly, fingertips lingering over the old, raised marks, dragging it out in pain and interest. His skin turns red, the pathways he’s marked out. He does it again, and again, intrigued by the color and pain. If only a little.

It’s beyond him why he’d forgotten he’s in a shared room, but it still startles him the moment the door clicks open. He doesn’t know quite what to do with himself, with his hands, even though he hadn’t really been _doing_ anything in the first place. A fact which he wastes no time in proclaiming out loud as Geralt stops in the doorway and stares. “I wasn’t doing anything!” That sounds suspect as hell, because, of course, he knows Geralt’s picked up on his mood in the past few days, and Geralt knows about his… old habits.

Old habits, they died hard.

And Geralt looks suspicious, just like that. Honestly, so would he. Especially with his history and the letter opener on the desk, like he hadn’t been eyeballing it a minute ago. Or, awhile, maybe. The candle’s burned down to almost nothing. It’s too easy to lose track of time when you’re zoned out doing nothing.

“I wasn’t,” he promises, and he knows Geralt knows that’s true, anyway, because he’d be able to smell the blood. And there isn’t any. But he does wonder if he can smell the shame of almost being caught almost doing something. But probably not. Probably not.

Geralt closes the door, apprehensive and… something. Jaskier doesn’t know. He, for once, can’t read the look on his face, even after all these years. And that is honestly terrifying, abruptly, more than being tired or unhappy or contemplating putting a blade to his wrist.

“You were thinking about it.”

Oh. It’s soft and flat and to the point. It’s the tone of voice that makes him quake, he thinks. Or maybe the certainty of the words, intention given voice. He’s acknowledged old scars, certainly, but… his tongue is coated with saliva. His stomach rolls. His bones shake.

“It was already there,” he protests weakly. Gods, why is he folding so completely now, after years and years of holding this not-so-secret?

“You were still thinking about it,” Geralt says, plucking the letter opener from the desk quietly.

Jaskier watches it glint in what remains of the candlelight, and tilts his head. “… maybe a bit,” he admits, before he can stop himself, and then curses out loud. “Fuck–” Why is he saying this? Why is he– why–

He’s just about to throw himself from the chair, call it a night, go to bed, or better still, get a _drink,_ anything to get away from the mistakes he’s made and was about to make again, and all of the questions and quiet, nonjudgmental _something_ on Geralt’s face–

– then the blade flashes, catching the moonlight from the window, and Geralt curls his palm around it and–

Jaskier gasps at the glint of metal and the spill of blood, and lunges from his chair so fast it topples over. _“Geralt!”_ He clears the few feet between them in seconds and takes the letter opener, bloody now, like it had threatened to be minutes before, and sends the blasted thing flying across the room. “Geralt, you– what– Gods!” He snatches Geralt’s hand to inspect the damage, the cut bleeding across an already scarred palm. “What–”

Geralt is watching the blood drip much more placidly than Jaskier is, right now. “Not a great feeling.”

“That’s what happens you _slice your palm,_ Geralt.” He settles on grabbing his bag and overturning it onto the bed for a strip of old cloth. He’ll save the bandages until after it’s cleaned and dried–

“Not what I’m talking about.”

Jask finally stops his frantic search for something to dress the wound with. Oh. That. He gets it, then. Actually, if it weren’t for the fact Geralt’s cut himself directly in front of him, _startling_ him, it probably would have clicked sooner. Yeah, it feels like shit to watch Geralt hurt himself. He gets it. “… really not the best way to handle a _teachable moment,_ Geralt.” He resumes his search, finally plucking some clean rags from underneath the pile. “Making me feel guilty isn’t _exactly_ going to help, I can handle that on my own, thanks.”

“That’s not–” Geralt huffs, unclenching his hand as Jask tugs on his fingers so he can get back to tending it. “That’s not it, Jaskier.”

“I know.” And he does, because he _knows_ Geralt. He’s as awkward as they come, and decidedly _not_ good with matters of the heart. How he and Yen have managed to raise Ciri thus far sometimes shocked him. He’s joking. _Mostly._ “But you hurting yourself just to make a point–”

“That’s what you’re doing,” Geralt interrupts, and Jask scrunches his nose up.

“I’m not. It’s not like that. I’m not doing it to prove a _point.”_ And he’s pretty sure Geralt knows that, too, because it’s just a segue into the next question– 

“Why, then?”

Which is still not a question he has any answer for. “I don’t know.”

“Jaskier.”

“I _don’t,”_ he says quickly, pressing the cloth into Geralt’s palm. “I just… I don’t know. I never have. I just… It just happens, sometimes. I don’t just sit around and think, ‘oh, what ways can I hurt myself today?’” He has to stop to swallow the bitter taste on the roof of his mouth. He’s, yes, he’s never talked about this, like this, before. But now he’s started and can’t seem to stop. On par, then. “I know… I– I’ve heard people, they… they’ve said they do it to feel something. Anything. Maybe that’s true, too. But I already feel… a lot,” he admits. “Too much. And you can just say it’s the _bard nature_ in me–”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You _have_ said that,” Jaskier reminds gently, even though all of those times have been in good fun and hadn’t offended him. Maybe he should be more offended, but he’s not. “But everything just… _feels,_ Geralt. And any of it hurts. All of it hurts. _Breathing_ hurts, just… sometimes.”

“Like now.”

“Like…” Not _now_ now, not when he’s distracted by Geralt’s injuries and a purpose. But that’s not really the question, either. “Sort of,” he murmurs. “I’m just… I don’t know. It just gets out of my control.” It’s the most unsatisfying answer he can give, and that frustrates him in itself. But it’s true. It’s emotional and messy and complicated, but true.

He watches a line of blood trickle down Geralt’s wrist. He’s almost transfixed by the sight, in the macabre sort of way. It could have been him. But it isn’t. He reaches to touch that line of blood, fingers gentle over those dangerous, dangerous veins there. Oh, he knows the risks. And he’s not trying to kill himself (nevermind that one time) because he’s _still_ scared of death after all these years. But even then, he’s a man who puts his profession in his hands almost as much as he does his voice, and he’s playing very bad odds. It’s usually enough to put him off. But sometimes… sometimes… “Don’t you get sad…?” he asks softly, and swipes the blood away.

“Witche–”

“Oh, if you’re about to give me the ‘witcher mutations stop me expressing emotions’ horseshit again, _spare me.”_ Jaskier rolls his eyes, and scrubs away more of the blood. Geralt stays quiet, which means Jask has to be the one to keep going. He takes a breath and continues. “You get upset, you kill monsters. It’s– that’s acceptable, it’s your job. But I can’t murder _music–”_ At his side, Geralt huffs a small, small breath, and Jask scowls– almost playful. It feels like a pale imitation, but it almost surprises him because he’s barely smiled these past few days. “You are _truly_ the worst person I know, you know that?”

“Undoubtedly.” Geralt almost maybe-smiles, too, and then Jask isn’t quick enough to duck out of the way when he puts his uninjured hand in Jaskier’s hair and ruffles it up.

“Stop– _stop!”_ he squawks, swatting at his hand– still holding onto the fingers of the bloodied one all the while. “Geralt, I’m trying to be–” _serious,_ but the conversation’s taken a turn and he feels better for it, anyway. Gods, how does he feel better? He hasn’t even done anything. “I need to put something on that hand. _Stop._ Geralt.”

Geralt does relent, half dropping onto the bed to sit quietly as Jaskier tends the wound. It’s not that deep. It won’t scar. But it doesn’t change the fact. The redness on his own wrists has already faded, but that doesn’t exactly change the fact, either. But he thinks he’s safe for now. They’re safe for now.

“When you feel out of control, tell me.”

Geralt’s voice in the otherwise silence startles him, just enough to have Jaskier’s hands falter in wrapping his palm in bandage. But only for a moment. He’s almost finished with it, and wraps it once more between Geralt’s thumb and forefinger. Then he ties it snug, mostly satisfied. He knows it’ll heal before Geralt even has reason to take a potion again. Still doesn’t change the fact, but. “Words become a bit beyond me, then,” he says. “I think it’s why things spiral so quickly. Since I’m a _word_ smith, and all…”

“You don’t have to talk. You just have to let me know.”

“You already _know_ when I’m upset, I know you can tell.”

“Yeah,” Geralt agrees, testing the binds of his bandaging. “But there’s different kinds of hurt, Jaskier.”

He doesn’t have anything else to focus his attention on. So he folds his hands in his lap and stares unseeing at his mess of things on their bed. And Geralt’s right. “Yeah…”

“Maybe I can make it easier to breathe.”

Something about that makes it, momentarily, more _difficult;_ his throat seizes up and his eyes sting, but it’s… in a good way this time. He’s pretty sure it’s good. It’s still a little hard to tell, but he thinks so.

Geralt can make it easier. He does; he _has._ Jaskier finds himself breathing in now, slow and deep and the beginnings of a sigh. He focuses on the swell of his lungs, and the ache in his chest that hasn’t _quite_ gone away. Then he exhales in a rush, and nods his head, tentative, maybe hopeful.

“I’ll… try.” He can make no promises. Not here, not now. But he’ll do his best. And even that isn’t as daunting as it might have been a half hour ago.

“Good,” Geralt says, with his tone of finality that says that is pretty much that.

And… Jaskier’s actually okay with that. He thinks he’s actually okay. But until he knows for certain, he leans over enough to lean his shoulder against Geralt’s. Hesitant and probing and… craving, maybe. Just a moment longer. Just until he knows for certain.

Geralt stays put, and Jaskier breathes a little bit easier.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a vent piece and here we are... the thing with depression... it's messy and complicated and there's no real answers and no real fix... it's just... icky, huh? there's no immediate happy ending
> 
> aaaand there's gonna be a sequel to this, when I can, so until then✌️


End file.
